Here we go my first story aptly titled A Father Figure. This is an AU, pregnant at 16 and no father to speak of Vivian Wilde is forced to raise her son Nicholas alone...until one day a fox by the name of Jack Hunter finds little Nicholas crying outside by a dumpster.
This is supposed to be a happier AU where Nick gets a father and his life turns out much better. But don't be mistaken, we're going dark places with this story with pretty much all of it revolving around Jack.
This is just the prologue but it is HUGE and has two parts just to give you readers a complete picture of Jack and a summary of everything he went through before he meets little Nicholas. If you don't want to read this lengthy prologue and just be confused about Jack that's fine just skip to chapter one then. But I really don't recommend it.
P.s. No Judy will not be in this story but she will appear in the sequel. Also I'm a total WildeHopps shipper so no need to worry about that bit that will happen in every single story I have at some point.
Prologue Part One: Introducing Jack
To say that Jack Hunter had it rough would be a gross understatement. Sure he lived in Zootopia where 'anyone could be anything!' But there was one problem, he was born a Vulpes Vulpes, I.e a Red Fox. Just thinking about the 'great city's' slogan caused Jack to snort audibly and mutter to himself 'anything my furry red ass.' Snorting again and giving himself a full body shake he began to observe himself in a full body mirror.
His coloring was typical of that of a Red Fox, russet fur with cream fur starting on the underside of his muzzle and continuing down his chest and stomach. He also had black tipped ears, *he flicked one for emphasis,* and his paws were also black, but what was more of a rare sight was that his tail was also tipped black, *shifting his tail in front of him he swished it a few times for his own amusement.* He was quite tall for a Fox, in fact, he was only half a head short of the average size of a Wolf giving him quite the profile. Broad shoulders and a straight posture also added to his profile, of course this impressive profile for a Fox also meant that he received twice as much scorn, disdain, and distrust than your average Fox simply because he emanated the 'Big Bad Fox' stereotype. Now for Foxes the first they would be drawn to was his eyes, and for any other mammal, it was his paws 'to make sure they weren't in the mammals pockets stealing their valuables.' *At that thought Jack chuckled lightly and shook his head.* No for Foxes, and some other mammals he hoped, the first thing they are drawn to is his eyes. Because his eyes were a deep, brilliant, sea foam green. Green was a rare eye color in general and even rarer in Foxes, but, seafoam green was the rarest green possible. In fact, Jack was the only living fox recorded to have this particular shade of green; sure it ran in the Hunter family, but being the only one left meant no other living fox possessed his eye color.
That was another reason he had rough, tough, hell, any bad word you could think of to describe his life would be a fit. But he personally favored 'a living hell' as the way to describe his life. His mom and dad were murdered when he was four and their house set on fire to cover it up, the reason they were killed could be summed up in one word, Foxes. Of course he was supposed to be dead and ash too, for the mammals who did it also stabbed him in the neck hoping he would bleed out, *remembering that night Jack shuddered and rubbed the scar on the left side of his neck like he did whenever he was very nervous* but Jack was a stubborn fox even at four years old and just refused to die like that; and even though he didn't know it at the time, it helped that the ram that stabbed him managed to miss his jugular and carotid artery.
Jack waited until the intruders were gone and house set ablaze before he made his way to his parents who were just barely alive and they got their goodbyes to each other out before saying, "if you want to get out alive, go, run for your life." Jack just barely managed to make it out before the house collapsed and the fire department, EMTs, and police officers arrived.
Before Jack even let the EMTs touch him he walked straight up to the nearest officer and told them what had happened inside that house, but of course the Rhino officer did not care nor believe him simply because he was a Fox. Worst part of that interaction was that that particular officer was the current chief of Precinct One back then, Henry Ironsides. *Jack began to growl just thinking about that bastard Ironsides before continuing his train of thought* Although he wasn't aware of that fact until later, a female Cheetah EMT finally managed to grab Jack and load him into the ambulance and began tending to him as the ambulance sped off to the nearest hospital *thinking back Jack realized that Cheetah was the only mammal that day that treated him like a regular mammal and not some toxic thing, recalling her name because he had asked, Tammie Spotters, he vowed to look her up and hopefully thank her.* At the hospital after being stitched up and further tended to they informed him of the obvious that he had no living kin, for he was already told that both sets of grandparents had died in separate car accidents before he was born.
That has meant only one thing, orphanages, because no foster home would ever take him because of one thing, Fox. He also knew he would never be adopted because again, Fox. Resigned to his fate at four years old he was sent to a orphanage named Honorhall, and what a hell hole for him, because Honorhall was a prey only orphanage. Even at four he knew he was placed there on purpose and would later find out that it was Ironsides doing. But at four what could he do? The caretaker of the orphanage was a cruel women who beat him and even openly encouraged the other children to as well, though it's not like they needed much convincing of encouragement. He was bullied, beaten, and practically tortured for two years before he finally decided to leave on his sixth birthday.
But what made him leave wasn't something that was done to him, though all those things didn't make his decision harder, no what made him leave was the outright murder of a new addition to the orphanage, a male rabbit named James Sparrowtail. James was seven and openly defended Jack and even protected him from a beating he was receiving from the head mistress because she was simply bored. He had tried to tell James not to intervene but he never listened and shielded Jack, and even though Jack was 5 he was still bigger and stronger than James therefore he could take the beatings. James on the other paw could not, and was beaten to death dying of massive blunt force trauma to the head (the headmistress was a Zebra) after being forced to bury James' body he decided it was time to leave. But he swore revenge on her, justice for him, vengeance for his parents, and justice for James Sparrowtail.
It helped that Jack was a special Fox. Because he had hyperthymesia, though he didn't know what his condition was called until he was seven, a very very rare condition that in simple terms, allowed him to remember everything; and everything wasn't an overstatement. The only downside to having hyperthymesia is that he couldn't forget anything either, and gods he wished he could forget somethings. He also had incredibly heightened senses, not anywhere near supernatural, but heightened nonetheless. Hearing on par with rabbits, a nose that could make some wolves jealous, and eyesight like a hawk; Jack speculated that he got his heightened senses as a byproduct of hyperthymesia. Then with heightened senses came enhanced reflexes, enhanced reflexes led to increased agility, add all of it together plus the fact that at six years old he was the average size of a 12 year old fox added up to the simple fact, he could turn himself into a deadly weapon. So that's what he decided he would do, at six years old he decided he would make himself into a weapon, a weapon to be used to get revenge, to get vengeance.
Since he looked like a twelve year old fox it was easy to get around without being stopped because he was young, so he made his way back to the place he was born, Happytown. *Thinking about that horrid place he shook his head and muttered, "the irony is not lost on me." After muttering this he returned to his musings.* Happytown, which lets face it, was a bullshit name used to help pitch that it was some great and happy place for predators to live so they didn't taint the city anymore that they already had. Made by the at the time all prey city council, they advertised it as a haven for predators with great prices, and it didn't dawn on the predators until it was to late that the prices were low for a reason. *shaking himself fully again he said aloud "now now Jack, this is a self reflection, now's not the time for the Happytown conspiracy. You can return to that later."* Anyways he returned to Happytown, and his first stop was the library. It was meagerly stacked and like everything in Happytown run down, perusing through the library he grabbed the books he would need (every single one of them about fighting and combat) and promptly walked out with them. It wasn't like they would be missed, hell there wasn't a single other mammal in that whole place. Walking for several blocks he thought about places he could stay and be relatively safe before it dawned on him, he promptly turned around and headed straight back to the library. Slapping the books he took on the front desk he proceeded to go up to the second story and open up the "office." What the office really was was a small sized apartment that was obviously abandoned, like the whole library itself. A kitchenette, living room (the living room had a fold out couch, a desk, and very usefully, a punching bag), a modest closet contains a safe (Jack promised himself he'd get it open,) and a bathroom (that's plumbing surprisingly still worked) was what the apartment consisted of, so for the next three days he cleaned up the apartment making it livable enough using the cleaning items still contained in the library. After that was done he went into the library and found a book titled "electric repair for dummies." Reading the book cover to cover in about an hour he fixed the electricity for the apartment so he could at least have the lights on when he took a shower along with other things, sure he was nocturnal and had night vision but it didn't mean he wanted to sit in the dark every time he was in the apartment. The next day after he awoke he decided before anything else he needed to figure out if the crotchety old badger, well old to him, would be coming back to this place.
From what he could deduce, The whole place hadn't been visited in weeks at least and the badger no longer received any of his mail here. So he surmised that the badger either just abandoned this place and moved, or died; but since the badger was 45, in relatively good shape, and a veteran he guessed the badger just abandoned the place. So coming to the conclusion that the badger wouldn't be coming back he locked the doors of the library, picked up the books he had left on the front desk, took them to the desk in the "office," and started reading.
*perspective shift, plus two weeks later*
David Badgerton was walking down one of the sidewalks of Happytown paws in his pockets as he headed towards his old library. At least once a month he went there just to reminisce about things and maybe on the occasion grab a book or two. But for this trip he also had the purpose of finally taking his Kbar knife from the service home with him to put above the mantle to his gas fireplace that doesn't work. He didn't even know why he kept it at the library, he just did. As he rounded the finial corner his library came into view and what he saw confused him greatly, the lights were on. Sure it was night but he never turned the lights on unless he was there and he always turned them off when he left. Next his beady brown eyes were drawn to the window were his "office" was and now concerned, because he cut the power to the apartment because he never ventured in there. With a frown set deep into his muzzle he walked up to the library doors and turned the knob, only for nothing to happen, the door was locked.
Now he was pissed. Some lowlife decided to move into HIS library without asking and locked him out? Oh-ho someone was gonna get their furry ass BEAT. Pulling out his keys he flicked to the one for the library and inserted it into the keyhole only for nothing to happen, whoever this bastard was also changed the locks. Now even more furious David put his shoulder into the door causing it to break open, moving into the library and pulling his pistol from his back holster and clicking the safety off he moved towards the stairs silent as a mute mouse but with a purpose. He stalked up the stairs and to the door of his "office." The door was halfway open so he decided to look inside to see just what lowlife scum piece of garbage thought it was okay to take over Sergeant-Major David Badgerton's library before whooping their furry ass.
To say he was surprised when he peered inside would've been an understatement. Sitting at the desk with his back turned to David was a young red fox reading a book. Next to the fox's left was a very impressive stack of books, almost twenty, with at least another twenty stacked by the fox's left leg. Now when David made the library he filled it with books that he believed would help mammals learn useful skills to get good jobs but such a thing as good jobs was unheard of for those that were stuck in Happy Town, which was the main reason he closed the library.
Returning from his musings he took a moment to observe just what kind of books this particular fox had been reading. The books stacked on the desk were all anything and everything related to combat, stealth tactics, history of guns, knives, swords, different martial arts books, written tutorials, the list goes on with all of it relating to combat. He then glanced at the stacks by the fox's left leg, these books were an assortment of subjects: history, science, only a few math books, English literature, several other language books (Spanish, Russian, and Japanese,) engineering, health, mammal anatomy, specific mammal anatomies, a book on pickpocketing, lockpicking, and several other subjects. Not to mention these weren't small books either, in fact the smallest ones were over 200 pages and the largest ones were over a 1000.
David then focused on the fox itself. It was obviously male, and very young, between 12 and 14 if David had to guess. The fox looked healthy and strong for its age, and when he focused on his back more a inaudible snarl took over his muzzle and is eyes began to burn with fury not directed at the fox itself but to whoever put the scars on the foxes back. There were at least eight of them and a dozen at the most all situated on his upper back, cross and criss-crossing each other every which way. They were wide enough to where the foxes fur didn't cover them and probably wouldn't unless it was winter and maybe even then not completely. Then when the fox shifted a little David also caught a glimpse of the scar on the left side of his neck and became even more furious, wanting to punch a wall and then hunt down whatever mammal or mammals did that to the poor fox.
David immediately knew that he wasn't gonna beat this particular mammal to a pulp for taking over his library, nor was he gonna kick the fox out either. No this fox was a victim of society so much worse than the other foxes David had met in his entire life, maybe even combined. He was gonna let this fox stay here, hell maybe even teach him how to fight seeming how that was something this fox definitely wanted to learn. Before he decided to make his presence known David decided to look over the rest of the apartment to see just what the fox had done to the place. He was first drawn to the right side of the desk the fox was sitting at, he noticed there was another book but he couldn't tell what this one was about, and before he could think on it any more the fox closed the book he was reading and promptly dropped it onto one of the stacks by it's leg and then shifted the book on his right to right in front of him and began reading that one. On the fox's right also was a glass of water and, surprisingly, David's knife, which had been locked in the safe. It sat out of its sheath on a sharpening stone, looking sharper than it had ever been in years. The kitchenette over to the right looked all cleaned up and in working order, the punching bag looked like it had been replaced, and then David's eyes settled on the left wall.
His eyes widened and bulged. Adorning the entire left wall was, well battle plans if David had to choose what to call what he saw. The fox had the plans broken up into three stages, at least that's what the fox called them, Stage One started at the top of the first column with a small snippet from the newspaper The HappyTown Times, the snippet was dated two years ago and said, "Fire in Happytown burns down home of James and Katherine Hunter, kills both and leaves their son Jack Hunter orphaned." A single well worn photo of what must have been Katherine Hunter was placed right below the snippet to the left, and to the right of the photo was written, "arson not just a fire, not just an arson, and arson to cover up a double mammalcide and attempt of a third, me. Scar on my neck is proof, don't need more proof, need revenge, find the mammals who did this, kill them, kill them all. No mercy." Under the photo and writing was 6 hand drawn images of what must have been the attackers if, who David now knew to be Jack Hunter the six year old orphaned son of the Hunters, was to be believed. the drawing were incredibly detailed and colored, first was a male billy goat, next were three rams, followed by two male deer. Under each after all the details was what Jack believed their role was. Under the billy goat was, "leader." Under the three rams was, "leader guards." And under the two male deer was, "enforcers." Something David noted they all had in common was in the descriptions of all six mammals they all had three blue dots dyed on either side of their necks. Under the photos and descriptions drawn directly on the wall was a depiction of the three dots and next to it the words "gang? Symbol for gang? Need more information."
The plans for Stage One continued down the wall but David moved his attention to the second column labeled Stage Two. This stage was immensely more thought out and went into much greater detail but David internally summarized what the goal of Stage Two was. "So Jack wants to expose the headmistress of the orphanage he was sent to, Honorhall, which is an all prey orphanage? Anyways he wants to expose her for murdering a orphan there, a seven year old male rabbit named James Sparrowtail. Sparrowtail was murdered for protecting Jack and his body was buried behind the orphanage, he also wants to expose her for the beatings and torture he endured during his stay as well as what the other children did. His end goal is for her to be arrested and the orphanage shut down.
According to his notes he has all the evidence and will only present it to a officer Adonis Bogo anonymously. If Bogo doesn't do the right thing Jack will just take the evidence public after he kills the headmistress. He doesn't expect the public to do anything about what was done to him but he expects there will be an uproar over Sparrowtail's murder. He also plans on ruining Bogo's career if Bogo doesn't take this evidence and seek justice, and he also mentions that Bogo must not bring the evidence to his chief, Henry Ironsides."
This led to David to look at the third column, Stage Three. Stage three went into by far the most detail and was the most planned out, and the plans goal was pretty simple, expose Ironsides corruption and specism resulting in having him arrested and striped of his uniform and rank. Jack had plans on how to gather all the evidence he needed to take down Ironsides and had speculations on just what Ironsides was also involved in. Jack also planned on giving all of this evidence again to Adonis Bogo if Bogo pulled through on Stage Two. Also as with Stage Two Jack plans on taking the information public and planning to kill Ironsides if society chooses to ignore his crimes. In fact those plans alone were the most detailed, even containing bullprints of Precinct One and Ironsides house. This wall all highly illegal but David couldn't find it within himself to care, this poor fox Jack Hunter was a victim of Zootopia's society to the highest degree, and the fox knowing this made plans to fix the wrongs committed against him, by force.
So no David wasn't going to oust him to the authorities, no. He was going to help Jack Hunter, he was going to train him. Sighing audibly and flicking the safety back on David started to open his mouth to make his presence known to the young fox. But when David's eyes returned to the fox he saw Jack's ear and tail twitch, hackles raise, head tilted and a single eye focused in on David's gun before narrowing. At that moment David knew, Jack heard the click, and he knew Jack was about to go on the offensive.
I felt that this was a good place to stop part one of the prologue. Next time on A Father Figure! Jack goes on the offensive against David Badgerton, alliances are formed, plans are set in motion. Thus starts Prologue Part Two: Jack's Revenge. Stay tuned!